The great escape
by whereweland
Summary: "I'm the king of the great escape, you're not gonna watch me checking outta this place. You're not gonna lose me cause the passion and pain are gonna keep us alive, someday." The story of how Kurt deals with Finn's death while trying to avoid being treated like a china doll by calling the last person on earth he'd have called under any other circumstance.
1. Prologue

**Hello there!** notes are at the end :)

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_I'm the king of the great escape, you're not gonna watch me checking outta this place. You're not gonna lose me cause the passion and pain are gonna keep us alive, someday._

The house was so quiet, I could almost hear my own footsteps against the carpet. It was just past six n the morning and I'm guessing my dad and Carole had finally gone to sleep, which is good, they needed it. Last night they went on and on, talking and crying in Finn's bedroom; about how they couldn't believe what happened, how we as a family will get through this, how they were surprised I had spent the day so calm. At one point I heard Carol asking, "How do you keep on being a parent, when you don't have your child with you anymore?", and that's when I decided to put my headphones on, with music so loud I couldn't hear my own thinking.

I think there's a quotation about that, how was it? _"When your troubles are too much just turn up the volume so loud you can't remember them?"_ I don't know, but it's something like that.

Whatever it was, I haven't slept either. I'd gone through three hundred and eighty two songs during the night and I planned to keep on that until either I fall asleep or become deaf, but before any of that happened my battery died and I had to leave bed because rolling around doesn't help. I don't know to why it'd help, if I don't need help, but yeah that. I think I'm talking faster than my mind can process.

I walked inside the kitchen, this time I didn't need the lights because dawn had tinted our kitchen on a vast range of orange and yellow shadows. I smacked my feet with a chair because I can't see very good but it's fucking poetic to say my kitchen was tinted with dawn's light so I'm not gonna ruin that by turning on artificial white lights.

Usually on mornings I go for coffee but as caffeine isn't the best way to go with the insomnia, I go for tea instead. It's okay, I have my rituals with tea as well. One teaspoon of sugar not more not less, a splash of cold milk always on the right side of the cup, and if you are asking yes even cups that are round have a left and a right side, and the tea bag has to be dipped in ten times.

And as we are on the subject have you ever heard the saying "You are more boring that watching the water boil?" Well if someone had ever said that to you, you should be very annoyed because watching water boil it's freaking boring. It makes knitting sweaters look as enjoyable as Christmas morning, but I had to do it because I can't find the kettle in the darkness.

After what felt like two days, it boiled and I made my tea.

"Hey." Carole whispered behind me, stepping into the kitchen. She'd have scared me if her voice wasn't so soft and scratchy. I don't think she'd slept, her eyes were deep red and puffy and she was wearing the same clothes she wore last night.

"Do you want tea?" Yeah I know it sounds lame, but what could I have offered to her? A sleeping pill? Vodka? A bath? Somehow, I don't think she'd have taken any of that nicely.

"Sure." She nodded. "Do you want me to turn on the lights for you, hon?"

"Nah, it's okay." I said, pouring water into her cup. "I like it better this way, I can't find most of the things but it looks like a scene out of a book."

"I have forgotten how you were always looking for artistic scenarios."

I left the tea bag inside her cup when I poured the milk, for some reason I don't need to be meticulous when I prepare other people's drinks, only mine. "You know? I think it has gotten worse since I left. New York altogether is a movie scene, I've even been inside bookstores just waiting for something to happen."

She smiled, but she looked so sad it almost broke me. "Are you okay Kurt? You know you can talk to me, right?"

"I'm okay." Or so it seems, but sure I'm okay. "I— um, I'm going to make you some toast, you haven't eaten since yesterday." I handled her the mug, and turned around looking for bread.

"Just tea for now." She held the mug tightly with one hand and stretched the other to me. "Why don't you just sit down?"

"Okay, but I'm still gonna make you a full breakfast later." I sat down across from her, with my own cup. Silence always felt nice with Carole, but today I just wanted to have something to tell her.

That this wasn't happening would have been the best, but she wouldn't have believed it. I wouldn't either except I had to because the alternative was fucking unbearable. And so everything was okay.

"You know? I don't think I could eat toast ever again." She started, I knew what she was about say. "I see that toaster and all I can think about is his face when he showed me the Jesus toast— "

"It was a grilled cheese sandwich." I corrected her, before I could stop myself.

"Oh right. How did he call it? Grilled Cheesus? He was such a kid."

Was. No I wasn't going down there. I wasn't going to talk about him as if he were gone. No.

"I— um, I'm going over to Blaine's. I need something. I left my jacket there." I left my mug untouched on the table. Which wasn't even cold yet. "Make sure you eat, or I can bring you something on my way back—."

"Kurt honey, it's six, in the morning, I'm sure Blaine's asleep."

"I just— I'll be back soon." I kissed her goodbye, she didn't argue. She was broken. I felt horribly guilty, in the pit of my stomach for leaving her alone but I couldn't stay. I couldn't talk about him.

I love Carole, she is amazing and I couldn't have asked for a best non-blood related mother, usually I'd stay for breakfast and we'd bake because she loves cakes and we'd talk about whatever comes. We'd talk naturally for hours, but today I'd have made up anything just to get away from her.

I remember throwing my car keys on the couch last night. I figured it's not the best place to have left them for a quick getaway, but I'm so cool that I feel free to throw my keys wherever I want like a normal teenager. Ha ha, I love sarcasm. Thankfully someone had taken them and placed them on the coffee table.

"Take care Kurt. And—" She took a deep breath and then added. "Call me if you need anything."

I looked up at Carole, she still had that redness in her eyes that could break the strongest person in half. "Okay."

I didn't dare to kiss her goodbye again, just a shy smile and I was out the door. Where? I have no idea. I wasn't planning on going over to Blaine's, I love him, but the kind of looks I got from him last night were so pitiful and— agh, I don't know I just don't want to take them. I don't want his pity, and apparently he has a lot to give me.

I prefer to drive for hours if I have to. Driving is nice and it keeps my mind on the road rather than, well, in my life, which isn't one of my favourite topics to think about, and I'm all alone. I like it alone. Whenever I talk to people they treat me as if I'm about to snap, I saw it in Carol's eyes this morning just as I had seen it on Blaine's last night and my father's when he told me. They talk to me carefully, weighing their words, they wait too long for my responses. It's frustrating.

I'm okay. I tapped my nose two times on the left, no idea why but when I did I felt a little bit calmer.

I hate when people talk to me that way, you know? Especially when those people are Blaine or Carole or my father, it's like they are complete strangers and I'm just a little child who lost a parent all over again. Everybody feels sorry for me. It's awful. I had gone through that once in my life and it sucked so much I remember not going to school for two months, until everybody else forgot about me and my mother.

They shouldn't have bothered so much, we are alright. I'm okay. He is okay too.

But they do, and I could almost picture their faces as they watch me run up stairs to my bedroom, they'll whisper behind my back, something on the lines of "Poor kid, leave him alone. He is so sad." And I wasn't. I just wanted to be alone, as I'm now, because everybody else is trying to protect me when I don't need to be protected.

I just wanted to be on my own, somewhere where nobody knows they have to be sorry for me. There was the moment when I knew I needed to be back in New York, because they don't care if you are sad or happy they move on, the city keeps going, not like here that time seems stuck on last night and it'll be forever. In New York, doesn't matter what's going on with you, the show always…

_Goes all over the place or something._

Shit. No. Where the show always goes on and nobody stops wondering what happened to you. Yes, that. I ought to be there.

I super carefully, hence my sarcasm, hit the gas and turned the car very inelegantly around to the airport highway. I know what it looks like, I'm leaving my family when they need me the most, for the city that doesn't give a fuck about me but I'd rather that than feel the regret, and guilt and lost, every time I see my dad's eyes.

The highway was surprisingly empty, or probably not so surprisingly empty since it was like 6:30 on a Sunday morning. I'm all about quotations today but there was a saying about waking up early, only I can't remember it. It was good, I remember that.

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New story yay! I'm a little nervous about this one because Finn's dead can't, and I don't think it'll ever be, just about Finn but about Cory and that is such a delicate topic to write/talk about that I'm unsure how you will react to this but Finn's story touched me in a very personal way so I felt like I needed to write something for him and I hope you like it.

The story is based on the song "the great escape" by pink, the lyrics and music inspired me a lot while writing. (And she is an amazing woman so if you haven't yet you should go listen to her)

**And finally, and most important of all I love Cory, present tense as Hazel Grace would say.**

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_Hope to see you (whoever you are) in the next chapters! :)_

_And thanks to jobelle516 for being a wonderful beta and friend! _


	2. 001

I was just driving into the airport's parking lot when all these images started to flow through my mind. I was with him and he screamed and then hugged me and we danced at our parent's wedding and he sang Lady Gaga with me in the car and we were laughing and he was defending me about Blaine. He was upset about us not getting into our dream colleges and then he was talking to me and then giving me the ticket for New York and then he surprised me for my birthday.

My vision blurred when I remembered him last week, we had gone for coffee and I had to sneak out of my window because he didn't want Rachel to know he was there. We looked so happy in that memory. He was dressed up for his wedding, the wedding that would never happen, imagining a future that would never be his. I shut my eyes closed but even I couldn't block the memories out. It was overwhelming me, like I was trying to breathe under water.

I lost hold of the wheel completely and hit a car, and in those two seconds between I saw it coming and it happened I pressed the brakes as hard as I could, but I still hit it.

Funny thing to keep in mind next time? When memories take over your attention and make you feel like your lungs are drowning you can't concentrate so much into the driving part, stop the car.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I hear the other driver yell at me as he checked the damage. I wasn't watching directly at him, I was grateful the images had disappeared in my head. The other driver knocked on my window, and I looked up. "Oh you gotta be kidding me."

And as my life is a bed filled with roses and white feathers, Sebastian was standing there perfectly composed. Oh thanks universe. "I believe the word you are looking for is Hello." I said as I rolled down the window.

"Wanted to be noticed Hummel?"

I didn't know if I wanted to laugh at the bizarreness of it all or cry because everything that could have gone wrong had been. I went with irony for the moment. "More like I wanted to wreck you, but I'm willing to say I failed."

"Yeah, badly. You broke my two lights and the back is dented but Fiero will survive, on the other hand," He said eyeing my front "yours looks pretty bad."

"First that you called your car Fiero is creepy and second I don't care. I'm leaving my car here and I have no plans on coming back anytime soon."

"Of course." Sebastian tilted his head back, and I could have sworn he cursed someone under his breath before looking right through me. "I'm not letting you go until I'm sure my car will be repaired by your insurance."

"I seriously couldn't care less about it," because I didn't. I would have given him my car if that had guaranteed me that I could take the first plane to New York.

"Unfortunately I do, so as I can't call the insurance company at 7 in the freaking morning and with the therefore mention time and no caffeine in my system I can't stand your high pitched voice I think I'll benefit from the inside of a coffee shop."

So he said that, and I said go and then he said I should go with him, and I said no because his face gave me morning sickness and he asked me if I was pregnant and I said fuck off and then said he needed my insurance I-don't-know-what and I said I didn't care. Then we argued some more because I just wanted to get a ticket out of there not to drink some dreadful coffee with him, but at the end he dragged me to this inside café, that wasn't so dreadful and smelled like a bakery and brought two large lattes.

"I asked for yours with extra caffeine because you look like dead impersonated."

For the first time I recalled I was wearing some jeans and an extra big grey hoodie that had once belong to, oh shit, Finn, and that I must have my hair all messed up because I haven't seen a mirror in like twenty four hours and that I just had a near meltdown in my car, and I might have felt slightly embarrassed.

"Calm down, it's not fashion week." Sebastian sipped his drink ever so casually I practically laughed. "Plus, you look better when you don't try THAT hard, almost like a boy."

"One day." I said matter-of-factly "You will fall for a guy hard enough not to notice he wears the same clothes as your sister, and that day please, please, remember me and try to picture how I'll be laughing?"

"Done." Sebastian raised his coffee mug in promise, it occurred to me that he wasn't planning on falling for anything that wasn't his reflection in the next fifty years and he was more than proud about it. "What are you doing with that?"

I glared at him, feeling self-conscious even though I wasn't doing anything but arranging the sugars all facing up. It's not bad, it just bothers me at sight when they are randomly organized on the table but still when he caught me doing it, I felt uncomfortable. "Building a Lego house?"

"Good, we can knock it down then." He took the sugars from me and threw them at the near table.

"Why would you do that?"

"Because I can." He smirked, and I tried to remember why had I come into good terms with the guy. Not one come to mind.

"Look, I understand you want to make sure your, god save me, Fiero will be repaired by my insurance but I, honestly, don't have time to do this, I need to go."

Sebastian lowered his mug, his expression suddenly humourless. "No, you don't."

"What? Yes, I do. I should have gone already"

"No. Get it, you feel like running away and whatever but I'm not gonna let you."

I scoffed for the sake of my self. "Excuse me, you are not letting me?"

"Kurt, your life, and specially yours, is not any of my business and I wouldn't think in stopping you in another circumstances, but trust me, I know what is going on with you and no, you can't run away."

"No, you listen to me." I stood up, infuriated. "You can't tell me what to do, not now, not ever., I'm a grown person who can make his own decisions. And I'm not running away."

"Okay. Your call, but you are not flying to New York today."

"Try to stop me." I was leaving when he grabbed my arm and spun me around, he had that arrogant smirk on his face like he knew better.

"Actually." He paused, smirked again, and continued. "I can."

"No, you can't"

"Yes I can."

"No you-"

"This is stupid." He cut me off. "Yes I can, even if I had to drag you out of here."

I was starting to feel sick, this were just a nightmare, wasn't it? Because it certainly felt like one. "What?"

"What you heard."

"I have no idea why are you doing this, but I can't deal with you. I need to go. I really need to, okay?"

"I'm doing this because your boyfriend called me at three a.m. asking for help."

I hated myself a little more for hitting his car, I mean from the hundred cars parked here I had to bump his, didn't I? "Friend, not boyfriend, and I don't care and neither do you, just pretend you didn't see me and let me go."

"No."

He had my arm still held tightly which was starting to hurt, so I set it free and when he noticed I wasn't about to run away he lowered his. "I'm not going back home."

"I know." He made a long pause, as he was trying to find the right words. "I know you aren't. That's why I came here."

"You can't just force me to come back"

"No. But I might be willing to make a deal with you."

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**Hi again, hope you like this part :)** see you next time, and don't forget to tell me what you think!

Oh and again, a big shout out to Jobelle516 (she is my beta!)


	3. 002

"Running away is not the answer and deep down you know it." Sebastian backed down on the chair, he was serious. More serious than I have ever seen him.

"Neither is staying at your house."

"I didn't say you needed to, I say if you wanted to."

The deal was pretty much like this, I had to stay 72hrs in Ohio, either at his house or mine and if by the end of that I still want to go, he'll personally buy me the ticket.

"I'm not going to stay at your house. If I'm going anywhere it's to my own house, in New York. Not yours, the fact that you just asked is eerie."

He shrugged. "Then either I take you or you drive back. You have about five seconds to decide."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because as usual, I know better."

I could have told him to fuck off. I could run, buy a ticket and ignore him. I could have taken a plane and be as far as I could from Ohio, but there was something in the pit of my stomach telling me Sebastian was right. That I couldn't just go and pretend it never happened. I hated to admit it, but he was saying out loud what I was feeling inside.

I breathed deep. I couldn't go to his house, we weren't friends and something about being vulnerable around him made my stomach clench.

Since the recent events prove I'm not able to drive and Sebastian was already there, and it was like 8 am on a Sunday and normal people were asleep I let him take me back home. I hated myself a little more for hitting his car, I mean from the hundred cars parked here I had to bump his, didn't I? And worse I had stayed and allowed him to convince me. For a runaway I was terrible.

Before we left I took one last look at my car, it wasn't that bad but it wasn't like I was going to drive now so I didn't particularly care. "By the way, you can call the insurance company and tell them it was all my fault, that I was trying to murder you."

"I don't need that." He looked at me for a second and then turned back to the road, laughing. "I only used that to keep you there while I tried to figure out a way of kidnapping, you but with your consent."

"You planned to find me here? What?! Couldn't you just tell Blaine to come himself? Or you could have just let me go."

"Yes, and trust me it was my first option when I got a call in the middle of the night but then Blaine told me what happened with — "

"Don't" I said before he added anything else, or named him. If he'd said his name with the word death in the same sentence I'd have snapped right there and I couldn't because I was, so very much okay. Thanks for not asking. "You don't need to make me your charity of the month, you know that right?"

"Already did one this month, this is an extra."

It was the first time someone didn't try to force the news down my throat and keep on talking about it even if it was obvious I didn't want to. He just joked the subject away, he didn't care about my reactions, or lack of them. Truth be told he didn't care for me at all and it was okay. I liked that. I liked his cold glares at me as he picked up on my outfit once more. It felt normal.

"I know you are super busy looking down at the road right now but I need you to put your address on the GPS, I'm not a psycho and I don't know where you live."

I sighed. "Too bad I always imagined you stalking my house, trying to come up with new ways to annoy me."

"Oh, I know you would love that, but my life actually doesn't gravitate around you."

"A real shame." I replied, ironically.

Twenty minutes later he parked in front of my house. I must say I was a bit disappointed because I was ridiculously waiting for him to take twenty days to came here, or I don't know, perhaps a crash that would send me to a coma so I don't have to face any of it, but as neither of those happened I opened the car's door and exit the car.

I was halfway out when he grabbed me, because apparently he likes holding my arm and said. "Give me your phone."

"Are you going to steal me? C'mon I thought better of you."

"Don't be stupid, would you? Just give me your phone."

I gave it to him, and he punched his number on it and returned it. "In case you think about it and decide you want to see my house."

"I was hoping for a 'Call me later' and a wink, you are such a disappointment Smythe!" I said that because jokes are the best way of hiding that I was freaking scared and stupidly hopeful of what I'd find the moment I went inside.

But when I did the house was as I had left it, everything was the same. It seemed clear then, I went out for about two hours, that's not enough time for something to change dramatically. And what was I expecting anyway? To have all the lights turned on and Finn sat on the couch waiting for me with popcorn?

Maybe.

I stepped into the kitchen and found my dad and Carol reading the newspaper there, it felt for a second like we were back to normal, like I could just break the silence with a 'Hi.' and then I'll be served a full breakfast made by Carol that would be too big for me and Finn will complain that his coffee was too coffee and tasted like petrol and then he would pour himself a glass of milk and I'll say—

Nothing. I will say nothing because that wasn't happening, ever again. That's when I realized for the first time that we weren't and probably will never be the family we once were. And that I wasn't dreaming.

My dad glanced up at me, his eyes red and tired. "Hey Kiddo." He said with little emotion.

"Hi." Fuck my voice sounded barely louder than a whisper.

Carol smiled ever so softly, but the smile never got to her eyes. "You left your tea this morning, do you want me to make you some coffee?"

If by coffee you mean my brother back yes, if by coffee you mean that thing that tastes like petroleum then no. But I didn't say that to her because if I was broken, she was shattered on the floor.

"No, it's —" I struggled to find a word, but ended up saying "Okay." because it was the only word that seemed appropriated. "I'm going up stairs"

I went to my room, closed the door and collapsed on top of the blankets. I didn't cry. I just can't cry because crying will mean that I'm fully aware of what happened and I'm not and I don't want to. I just can't accept it, if I do it will be the end and I'm not ready for that.

This just simply can't be the end

The morning sunlight was creeping through the open lids of the windows but I didn't close them. I just laid there hugging the hoodie I was still wearing from last night and mentally memorizing the most complex trigonometric equations I had to resolve in math class back when I was in high school.

Anything was better than thinking about my brother.

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**Quick Author's note**, thanks to any one reading this! I hope you like it :)


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